Back at the shore, Rae had settled into a beach chair with her book, Lisa was doing some yoga stretches in the shade of the umbrella, Kimmy was making a drip castle at the water’s edge, and Ryan and Poppy were floating on their backs in the ocean.

“Hey,” Poppy said, creating a gentle current with her palms in order to move closer to Ryan. “You weren’t expecting any calls here this week, were you?”

“Huh?” Ryan grunted, but otherwise his posture showed no discernible reaction to the question. He was facing the sky, eyes closed, expression blank, body stiff as a board, like a mannequin that had been tossed to sea.

Poppy said, “Nobody would be calling the house phone for you here, right?”

Ryan’s brow twitched once: up, down. “No. Why?”

When Poppy didn’t answer, it was quiet between them for a bit, then Ryan said again, “Why?”

She said, “Oh, a weird call came in this morning. Like a . . . a guy, a man at the other end, sorta breathed heavy into the phone . . .”

“Ew,” Ryan said, sinking in the water, then moving to stand so that he could fully face his mother. He flicked a piece of debris on the surface near him, sent it soaring. “Seriously?”

Poppy waved a hand casually to indicate, Maybe, maybe not. She said, “It’s no big deal, not really clear who it is, nothing to worry about. I just wanted to make sure it wouldn’t be somebody trying to reach you.”

“Nope,” Ryan said. He was quiet for a while, then said, “Nobody knows anything about the caller?”

Poppy shook her head. “I’m sure it was a misdial.”

“Sure.”

Satisfied with this conversation and eager to speak of other things, Poppy said, “How’s your crab coming along, anyway? You ever figure out what killed that little guy?”

Ryan shook his head. “Not a clue.”

15

SCOTT WAS ON his way back from Beaufort (well, Beaufort by way of Ashdale, Burton, and Port Royal) before eleven o’clock that morning, and he was in some deep shit.

Already this morning, Scott had driven to all six banks within a thirty-mile radius of their beach house, withdrawn the maximum amount of cash, and was still $380 short of what he needed by noon today. At the last bank, a Wells Fargo in Port Royal, his debit card had been declined altogether. He spoke to a teller who explained that suspicious activity had caused the account to be frozen. She made a call to a headquarters and said that the problem had been corrected, but it would take forty-eight hours for his funds to become accessible again.

“Forty-eight hours?” Scott stared at her. “You friggin’ kidding me? Did you say forty-eight hours?”

The teller shrank as she nodded to confirm this information.

Scott experienced a brief out-of-body moment as anger overtook him. He grabbed a deposit slip from the counter before him and ripped it to pieces. Then he hightailed it out of the bank, recognizing that he might well get himself arrested if his temper got the best of him.